A magical birthday gift
by chloemcg
Summary: Two-shot. Phoenix finds that he's too poor to get Trucy a good birthday present and finds that he has to improvise for his adopted daughter.
1. Dilemma

**Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Ace attorney, I don't own either Phoenix or Trucy.**

**A magical birthday gift**

* * *

The rain came drizzling down on a cold and chill early-springtime night as the city streets of Japanifornia were softly lit up by lampposts that had stood boldly on either side of the roads that had been left almost deserted except for the occasional passerby that would take a casual stroll by —the streets were coated with a thick layer of leftover frost and ice, making them a bit of a hazard to walk on.

They were also a _giant _pain to traverse.

Phoenix Wright sighed in a mix of frustration and exasperation as he made his way homeward bound, trying to avoid catching his feet slipping on patches of ice that coated the path, as he frigidly grumbled beneath his breath as he stuffed both hands in his pockets, which also happened to contain some crumpled up papers, in an effort to keep them warm.

Each breath he made came out as a vivid white fog of condensation.

It was getting close to midnight and time had seemed to be caught up in some gooey mass that seemed to make it go slower then it should of, the only way that he could tell it was midnight at all was thanks to the neat platinum watch that hung on his left wrist, ticking along.

Phoenix's whole body felt as though it was made from lead and it felt so heavy that he could hardly hold himself up. His arms and legs dragged, his neck felt as stiff as a brick, his spinal cord curled inwards painfully with each and every step he took, and both his hands and feet felt numb.

He was thankful he hadn't slipped on any ice or else he probably wouldn't have gotten back up.

Thankfully it didn't take too much longer before he finally made it home from work.

It was dark.

It was hard to see.

He lifted his arm, grasped the door handle, and opened the front door.

He hardly hesitated before stepping inside and he promptly started meandering up the stairs. His knees ached and his lungs felt like a pair of deflating balloons as he breathed heavily in his effort to successfully make it up to his little room —the place where he longed (and desperately needed) to be right now.

There was one thing on his mind right now.

He stopped mid-way up the staircase and turned to look to his right to stare into the mirror that hung on the wall. He glanced over at the mirror and caught a glimpse at his own reflection and he knew that he was the epitome of pathetic.

He had stubble due to a lack of shaving that covered his chin and around his mouth, his wiry brows knitted together, the sharp spikes of hair that were once pointed and as sharp as his pointing finger of justice had not only dulled and drooped a bit due to poor care but were also usually covered up by a blue woollen beanie hat, heavy bags sagged under his sunken eyes, and his face had become a bit thinner then what could be considered the picture of health.

His mouth formed a thin line of distaste.

What had he become...?

_"Bet you're proud of me now, eh, Mia?"_ He thought to himself bitterly.

He glanced away from the mirror before he resumed stomping up the stairs of his flat until he finally lumbered heavily into the room and sat at the big wooden desk that once belonged to the bravest person he knew, his posture was slouched with exhaustion and his gaze was clouded with fatigue as he tiredly ran a hand through his black spikey hair.

Phoenix's tired eyes begun examining the copious amount of bills stacked in front of him that stared him right in the face.

Those stupid, stupid, confounded bills...

Even though it had been a month since he'd started working at the Borscht Bowl Club, he was barely scraping enough money together to even pay for Eldoon's noodles —the amount of money he was getting paid was so little that it would have made Chief detective Gumshoe's pay check jealous.

He removed the crumpled papers from his pocket and placed them among his not-so-neat little stack of bills.

It was his earnings for his toiling at the Borsht Bowl Club...and they weren't much.

It was true that he couldn't play the piano to save his life but at least he started challenging people to poker, yet he couldn't incorporate his little "ace up his sleeve" quite yet since he wanted to make a name for himself first —and he was confident that he could beat some of those amateurs without resorting to said "ace up his sleeve".

He hung his head and closed his eyes.

It was going to be his adopted daughter, Trucy's, tenth birthday in three days and he could hardly get anything for her birthday present...or at least anything that would be presentable as a birthday present.

He could hardly believe it.

It had been two years since he'd lost his job as a defence attorney.

It had been two years since he'd taken the young magician into his life.

During those dark times, Phoenix had been scrimping and saving as much money as he possibly could to try and keep himself and Trucy afloat but he was just barely making ends meet especially since he was unemployed. It was difficult but he was happy he wasn't going through this all by himself, especially with some of his friends shunning him for the "forging evidence" he was accused of...he bet that Mia would have been ashamed of him if she were alive. Despite everything he'd been through, the passed two years had been priceless to him and he wouldn't have traded them for anything.

All thanks to Trucy, his little light.

But these bills just reminded him of the cold, hard truth:

He couldn't...he couldn't afford something for his daughter's birthday.

What kind of father was he?

"...Daddy?"

Phoenix sat up when he heard that familiar voice.

The ex-lawyer whirled around and looked down to find the little girl who consumed his thoughts.

Trucy was stood by the door with an exhausted and half-asleep expression as she sleepily rubbed at her eyeballs and gripped on to the doors hinges as a means to keep herself stood on both feet. She looked so tired but so oblivious to everything that was going on...and Phoenix preferred to keep it that way because he couldn't risk her knowing and getting all worried —certainly she'd try and put on an act of optimism and joy but she would probably worry and fret deep down inside.

"Trucy? What're you doing awake?" He asked as she waddled up to him.

Phoenix collected the child into his arms, the almost ten-year-old practically melting into his embrace, and pulled her on to his lap. She seemed to be getting heavier and heavier as time went on and he knew that his back wouldn't allow this for much longer, it upset him a bit but it was inevitable; after all, was he expecting to pick her up and sit her on his lap when she was eighteen years old? The poor girl looked like she could barely keep her eyes open as she clung to his chest with as much strength as she could muster right now.

"I stayed up...waiting...for you...to come home..." She drawled exhaustedly.

Phoenix instantly felt a pang of guilt hit him right in the heart.

He hadn't meant to get Trucy worried about him to the point where she was staying up super late.

He wrapped both of his strong arms around her in a featherlight embrace and lowered his voice into a quiet mumble as he responded to her, hoping that lowering the volume of his voice would actually get the stubborn little magician to surrender to exhaustion and lull her to sleep.

"Sorry about that, sweetheart, Daddy just had to work late...have to fight those bills."

Phoenix cradled the nine-year-old against his lap as he held her close, trying to lull her to sleep.

She closed her eyes and started to nod off as she slept against his side.

The former attorney didn't say anything as he simply held the child in his arms.

He didn't know how he was going to get his precious Trucy a birthday gift.

He was lost in a haze of his own thoughts as he gazed sightlessly out the window, his ears only just picking up the sounds of his daughter's voice chirping sleepily.

"I know you can do it, daddy...you can do anything..."

Phoenix smirked softly down at the little magician before he leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her forehead.

From the time he had known her, she had always seemed so optimistic and so bright and cheerful, but she was also very a vulnerable and fearful little girl who always carried this fear of abandonment which was understandable since almost everyone in her life had decided to vanish on her —her grandfather died, her mother vanished during an an attempted magical illusion, and her father vanished in the middle of court and left her behind. She was always frightened that she would be left all on her own and she tried to never let that fear show but, whenever she would wake up in the dead of night due to nightmares, she would break down and shed all those fears.

It was always a heartbreaking spectacle, even after all these years of taking care of her.

The ex-lawyer stroked his adopted charge's head full of short brown hair as he thought back on that promise he had made to her on the day he had offered to take her in, back in the old office:

_"D-Daddy? You won't...?"_

_"I won't vanish, I promise..."_

Phoenix sighed for the second time tonight.

He didn't know what he was going to do about getting his daughter a birthday gift, even if he _knew _what to get such an amazing girl he had no clue how to go about affording anything that wouldn't leave them both without food for a good while and he couldn't bare the thought of his darling little Trucy going hungry at any point. But, if he had to, he would go hungry and just give _her _all his food since she _was _a growing girl. Not even that was on his budget, though, so he couldn't do that and Trucy was also clever and he didn't want to make her suspicious and sad.

Especially not on her birthday.

He did initially think of getting her a new prop but he couldn't even afford _that_ right now.

Phoenix looked back at Trucy's sleeping face.

Surely, he had to do _something_...!

Suddenly, as if by pure coincidence, a thought suddenly dawned on him.

In his spare time, the attorney had been trying to find hobbies and doing little things that could help make time go faster.

Sewing had become one of those hobbies.

Thus, his gaze fell upon a pile of useless-looking blue material that rested on top of a nearby sofa cushion.

He wasn't much of a man of creativity but he had been practicing in his sewing to try and surprise his daughter, he felt very ill-practiced though. The mere thought of going near sewing needles and thread to continue his little project was difficult but he felt that he needed to _try _and get it done because if he did complete it then he could hopefully solve all of his current problems.

He glanced down at the materials he had and his mouth formed a thin line and his wiry brow furrowed as a droplet of sweat. He didn't want know how he was going to go about _making _Trucy a good gift but he was definitely going to try.

He gulped.

"How am I gonna do this...?"

* * *

**A/N: Heres the first part of a two-parter fanfic and its a Phoenix and Trucy fic.**

**I hope you guys enjoy it!**

**Hopefully the second part should come out tomorrow.**

**-Chloemcg **


	2. The gift

**Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Ace attorney, I don't own either Phoenix or Trucy.**

**A magical birthday gift**

* * *

The sound of the needles clicked constantly in Phoenix's ears as he threaded the yarn through the tiny holes on his project.

He grit his teeth as a little droplet of sweat slid down his face, his expression so scrunched from focus that his facial muscles were starting to hurt.

He had been hard at this for what felt like an eternity and he could feel the bones in his fingers ache due to overworking them whilst he continued his crafting efforts. He worked hard for a solid two and a half days, with work in-between, to make a adequate gift that his daughter would enjoy..._although_ he was rather embarrassed to admit that he constantly stabbed himself with the sewing needles and had quite a few plasters and bandages decorating both of his hands to cover the red cuts that he sustained.

Each pin prick hurt like mad so that merely recalling it caused each cut to sting.

He constantly flickered his gaze back and forth from the book telling him step-by-step instructions on how he could successfully craft a half-decent piece of headwear that Trucy could appreciate as he had to summon all the memories that came flooding back from those few short years he spent pursuing an art career in college and from what he could recall on those short textile classes, he tried to recount what he learned back then to help him now.

The book was perched beside him and was open to a pretty large page with what appeared to be diminutive writing.

His blinked repetitively to keep his vision from blearing up due to fatigue.

He had to stay awake.

He had to keep working.

He was going to work until his fingers snapped.

Phoenix had ended up working on his project until the early hours of that third morning and it was inevitable that he'd fall asleep and just drift in the endless abyss of darkness that was slumber for several hours more. He didn't know what time it was before he finally aroused himself, thanks to the sunlight hitting him right in the face as though punishing him for choosing such a bad spot for sleeping.

He'd slumped forwards in his chair, the side of his face resting heavily against the hard wooden surface of his desk.

He was sure that the whole left side of his face would get a pretty large bruise due to how long he'd been resting it against there since it had been a fact that desks were never meant to be used as pillows. He had been up all night and that had meant that he lost his clasp on that final stretch of energy that had kept him up...

He felt _awful_.

The former attorney sluggishly sat up whilst groaning from the bottom of his throat as he felt as though he'd been through a thousand lashings, courtesy of Franziska Von Karma's whip, and was then dragged through a thousand miles of thorn bushes. He was the epitome of exhaustion with his eyes bloodshot, red, and stinging and with his face looking completely bedraggled with his messy spikes of hair looking way messier then they normally would. His lips felt dry even though the left side of his chin and cheek felt damp and slimey with saliva.

He clearly dribbled a bit in his sleep.

Gross.

He moaned, his voice slurred a tad, and he blinked repetitively to ease the pain in his eyeballs and to wake himself up.

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck that ached so much, he felt the vertebrae in his neck click beneath the firm pressure of his fingertips. He grit his teeth as he felt the clicks in his necks and he shrugged his shoulders as he finally sat straight up in his seat —his spine ached too.

Phoenix twisted his head and glanced down at the finished product that he had created and blinked at it in bewilderment.

Trucy's birthday present.

A pale blue top hat with a white ribbon tied around the rim.

It actually looked like a pretty decent top hat, to be fair, but it wasn't the prettiest hat out there and there were a couple of loose stitches here and there that hung out but, otherwise, it looked like a pretty good top hat.

The ex-ace attorney gingerly bent down and warily picked it up, noticing that it was quite light.

He held it carefully in his hands to avoid breaking it or ripping it by the seams.

It looked kind of impressive by his standards.

That was when he heard it.

**CLOMP!**

It was a sound that thumped throughout the entire flat, the sound of a pair of feet thudding to the ground hard. If he had to guess that meant that Trucy had probably launched herself out of bed and swung both feet over the side of it and jumped to her feet and, considering what an excitable little burst of energy she was, especially on her birthday, that was a very likely scenario.

Phoenix felt his eyes shoot wide open and his heart dropped into his stomach.

_Oh no, Trucy's awake...!_

The spiky-haired man jolted up in alarm as he used his hand to swiftly slid the hat to his side to hide it from view, he couldn't risk Trucy seeing it and spoiling the surprise right now. He listened with growing anxiety as the sounds grew louder and louder and he felt several veins pop up and pulsate against his neck as his anxiety hit the roof.

_Please don't see it, please don't see it, please don't see it._

His thoughts screeched to a halt when Trucy finally emerged from the hallway and entered the room with a half-asleep expression on her sleepy little face.

"Uuugh, good morning, daddy..." She yawned.

"Happy birthday, birthday girl..." Phoenix crooned in return.

The now ten-year-old magician approached him and seemed to grow more and more awake as the seconds ticked by. Her expression brightened up considerably as she seemed to suddenly remember that it was her birthday and her eyes lit up like a starry sky.

Phoenix decided that it was time for some father/daughter embarrassing moments as he started to lean over her and pepper her forehead with kiss upon kiss, much to the child's chagrin.

"Now! Time for some birthday kisses for my little girl!" He declared.

Trucy laughed brightly as Phoenix kissed her atop her head and she tried flinching away from the smothering affection.

"Hey! Daddy! I'm not so little anymore!" She exclaimed through giggles.

"Oh, really now?" Phoenix stopped kissing asked with a teasing note in his voice as he playfully raised a wiry brow at her, "Because you'll always be my baby!"

He grabbed her up into his arms and nuzzled her by rubbing his nose against her cheek and held on to her as she tried to squirm away from the love and affection. She couldn't stop giggling and wriggling in the former defence lawyer's arms and she tried to push away to distance herself from the delightful form of torture she was on the receiving end of, since she was quite ticklish.

It wasn't until he finally put her down that Trucy spotted something sticking out from her father's side and went to investigate it. She tried to peak around him but Phoenix, through subtly gritted teeth and a sweaty forehead, seemed to notice that she spotted it and shoved the hat further out of view in a panicked fashion.

"Nope! You can't see that until later." He said.

Trucy just stuck her bottom lip out and pouted in a playful manner.

"Awww..."

Phoenix stood up from his chair.

"Now, now. No need for that." The ex-lawyer, feeling just as playful, just tapped her on the nose and told her brightly, "You should go and get dressed because it's just you and me today!"

Trucy stopped pouting and nodded cheerily.

"Okay!"

With that, she dashed off to go and get dressed and Phoenix sent a cursory glance to the hat he'd made and a seed of doubt planted itself firmly in his mind.

Would she like it...?

The two spent the rest of their day hanging out with each other.

Thankfully, Phoenix's boss had been compassionate enough to actually let him have a day off to spend with his daughter, which was very glad for that because he wanted to give his now 10-year-old all his attention on her birthday. They went out for a walk in the local park, they played games there for awhile, Trucy got to perform some magic tricks for the local children, which included the amazing Mr. Hat, and then they decided to have some noodles at Eldoon's (because that was all Phoenix could afford) and the older man had even been kind enough to give Trucy some special birthday noodles "on the house" as he said with a little rendition of "happy birthday" on his harmonica —it was quite good too!

True, it wasn't the most extravagant way to spend a birthday but Trucy seemed thrilled at the mere prospect at spending time with the man who had taken care of her for three years of her life. Her eyes were glowing with joy the entire time and she never stopped smiling throughout the entire experience.

When they finally got home that Phoenix finally decided it was time to present his birthday gift for her...

Phoenix had asked Trucy to sit down on the sofa and close her eyes.

She did just that.

The ex-lawyer with the spiky hair felt his heart pounding with anticipation as he picked the hat up from its hiding place. His mind was whirling as countless thoughts raced through his mind, would she like it? Would she be disappointed with her gift? It wasn't that great and Trucy deserved way better then what he had made for her. He couldn't help but worry of her reaction.

With gentle hands, he slid them both beneath the brim of the hat and started to carry it.

Would she honestly like it?

With his heart weighing more and more with every step he took to turn around and walk over towards the sofa with the small girl perched on the seat, hands covering her eyes and she was practically bouncing up and down with barely-contained excitement.

Phoenix's deep ocean blue eyes were wide and a marble formed in his throat as he presented the bright blue top hat to his daughter and he watched with trepidation as her hands lowered from her eyes, her eyelids flew open and her gaze fell upon the accessory.

The lawyer averted his own gaze as he glanced over his own shoulder to look behind him, with a guilty and ashamed expression making itself known on his exhausted facial features.

"I'm...I'm sorry that I couldn't get or make you something better, sweetie, but I really hope you-"

"OHMYGOSH!" Trucy shrieked joyfully as she snatched the hat from her adopted father's grip and clutched it close to her, her eyes sparkling like the nighttime stars with delight, "I LOVE IT, DADDY!"

Phoenix just stared at the "young professional" in a mix of bewilderment and disbelief.

She...liked it?

Truly?

"You...You do?"

Trucy nodded her head as vigorously as possible.

"Yes! It's perfect!"

As if to make a point, Trucy removed the smaller pink hat, took the bigger hat from Phoenix's hands, raised the hat over her head and placed it proudly on top...only to frown as it sunk over her head to cover her eyes due to it being to big for her small head. Phoenix couldn't help but chuckle at the sight in amusement, his heart growing warm at the frankly adorable sight, and he gingerly reached forwards grabbed the hat by the rim and gently and pulled it back up so the little girl could at least see again.

She had a smile that spread from ear-to-ear.

Phoenix's own smile couldn't even try and match it.

Trucy's eyes filled with tears as she thrown herself forwards like a predator lunging at its prey and looped her small arms around her adoptive father's neck and pulled herself towards him and knocked her hat askew in the process, leaving Phoenix taken aback for a few moments. He didn't react for a few moments as he took in the warmth of his daughter's embrace and tears of his own started to ooze from his eyes and spill down his cheeks.

He felt so blessed that he took her in.

She was his light in these dark times and his reason to live.

His Trucy.

"Thank you, daddy...this has to be my best birthday ever!" She sniffled.

Phoenix finally wrapped his arms around her and snuggled into her embrace.

"Your welcome, Trucy. Anything for you."

* * *

**A/N: Heres the second part of my fic and I got it out before I restart college tomorrow.**

**I made this the origin of Trucy's hat and the cape that I think Feenie would make later, unexpected isn't it? I hope you guys enjoyed this short fic and I am happy that I had gotten this done before then.**

**I hope you guys liked this fanfic and enjoyed it.**

**-Chloemcg **


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